When it comes to e-commerce platforms, everyone knows about the coupon system. It is a common promotional method. Within a specified period, when purchasing corresponding product types and amounts, a certain amount will be deducted when placing an order and settling the bill. However, it should be noted that the coupon system and the marketing system are different. The various marketing activities or marketing tools in the marketing system are different distribution scenarios for coupons.

1. How to get coupons

Users can obtain coupons in two ways: passive reception and active acquisition .

Passive coupon collection: In order to attract new users, promote activation and repeat purchases, operators can actively push coupons to users and make notifications to reach users.

Actively collect coupons: Users obtain coupons through activities such as collecting coupons and drawing prizes.

1. System issuance

There are two commonly used methods:

a. Operations will manually push coupons to different user types based on user portraits and user tags.

b. The operator sets the trigger conditions for issuing coupons in the system according to different scenarios, and the system automatically issues coupons to users who meet the conditions. For example, if a user successfully places an order and meets a certain order amount, a coupon will be automatically issued to the user.

2. User Collection

a. Voucher Collection Center

The most common center on major e-commerce platforms is the coupon center. The entrance is usually placed on the homepage icon navigation, the "My" page, and even on the "My Coupon" page, where the coupon entrance is placed, tempting users all the time.

b. Pick up the product on the product details page

All major mainstream platforms will have a coupon redemption entrance on the user details page. If the user has a strong intention to purchase the product, then the product coupon will be a great help to the user. Often the conversion rate of coupons on the details page is much higher than that of issued coupons.

c. Activity acquisition

Users can only get coupons through activities: from no one using the coupons given to users to users having to participate in order to receive the coupons. It is conceivable that this requires attractive coupons, not to mention that users also need to redeem points to obtain them. Therefore, the coupons that users need to actively participate in activities to obtain are all coupons with relatively large discounts.

Points redemption coupons

Big turntable

Limited time coupons

Limited time coupons

2. Classification of coupons

1. According to the issuing entity, it is divided into platform coupons and store coupons

Platform coupons : issued by the platform and can be used across stores. When settling purchases, the discount amount will be allocated according to certain rules, and the allocated portion will be subsidized back to the merchant by the platform. Users can obtain platform coupons through platform activities, platform points redemption, inviting new members, etc.

Store coupons : issued by the store and valid within the store. When checking out, the discount amount will be allocated to the goods according to certain rules, and the discount amount will be borne by the merchant.

2. According to the scope of use, there are single product coupons, category coupons, and brand coupons

Single product coupon : only for some designated products or a small number of special products. This type of coupon is of higher value and difficult for users to obtain. However, the platform will also use single product coupons to carry out marketing activities to promote activation and attract new customers. I have personally experienced Koala's activities using single product coupons as a means of purchasing goods for 1.5 RMB, as shown below.

Category coupons : only for goods in designated categories, except for individual items, the discount is generally borne by the platform.

Brand coupons : only for products of designated brands. Except for individual products, the discount is generally borne by the platform.

3. According to the usage function, there are no threshold coupons, discount coupons, discount coupons, and free shipping coupons

No-threshold coupon : This coupon has no limit on the order amount and can be used directly. The discount amount will not be large and it is more difficult to obtain.

Full-discount coupons : Full-discount coupons are the most widely used coupons. The order amount must meet a certain minimum amount before they can be used. For example, a coupon for 10 yuan off for purchases over 100 yuan, where "100" and "10" can be customized according to the actual promotion strength. Do not design the latter amount to be higher than the former, otherwise you will lose everything. However, this will be checked when designing the coupon system.

Discount coupons : When using discount coupons, the order amount will be discounted by a certain discount. For example, if the order amount is 200 yuan, after the user uses the 20% discount coupon, the actual payment amount of the order is 160 yuan. When the order amount is too large, merchants are worried about giving too much profit, so they limit the use of discount coupons for some products. When an order contains products that cannot be used with the coupon, the discount coupon cannot be used for the entire order.

Free shipping coupon : This coupon is not used to deduct the amount of the order, but to deduct the shipping cost of the order. For example, if the goods are sent to more remote areas (Xinjiang, Tibet, etc.), the store will add the postage because it is relatively expensive; and for overseas shopping and direct mail, the users basically need to bear the costs. However, many businesses now offer free shipping nationwide, which is really great.

3. The role of preferential treatment

Coupons are essentially a marketing and promotional tool, so we still need to solve operational issues such as attracting new customers, increasing customer orders, repeat purchases, and promoting activation.

1. Traffic generation (new customers)

In order to attract new users when a new product is launched, it is necessary to let users watch for a while when they first enter your product. Staying for one more second will give the platform more opportunities to earn money. Then new user coupons came into being. It is a common strategy adopted for new users of all products, that is, users who register for the first time or users who enter the product for the first time.

For apps, the weight and exposure rate of the homepage are very high, without a doubt. When a new user clicks on an app for the first time, the homepage is the first thing they see. If you want new users to stay longer, you need to use "coercion and inducement" on the homepage. First, you need to let users know the benefits of registering for the app.

There are usually two more common strategies

a. 0 yuan for the first order: New customers can enjoy a full refund on their first order, but some platforms may not want to give too much profit, so they often give a very low price to new customers for their first order.

The first order for new users is 0 yuan. Although this action is not in the form of a coupon, it is actually the content of a coupon. Some platforms will return multiple combination coupons (or multiple combination red envelopes of equal amount), and may distribute 18% off new user coupons, 28% off new user coupons, and 38% off new user coupons respectively.

b. New user coupon: A new user benefit, a coupon issued to users who register for the app for the first time. As shown in the picture below: the 500 yuan new member gift package, plus the 2-day validity period, gives users the illusion that this store will never be available again. Just like a restaurant that is about to open, it starts advertising a few days in advance: big opening sales, buy something and get something free, and widely distribute cash coupons.

For newly registered users on some platforms, if they do not use any of their new member coupons and do not place their first order, then after all the new member coupons have expired, the platform will still issue a wave of combined new member coupons. Please carefully compare the validity period of the coupons in the picture below. The strategy logic here is not the focus of this article and will not be explored in depth for the time being.

Although we cannot say that all new member coupons are useful, at least for a period of time they will still tempt users to make impulse purchases.

c. Invitation to gift activities

The inviter shares a link with his or her invitation code, and after the new person registers, both the inviter and the invitee can get coupons. Both parties can benefit from it, both attracting new customers and promoting activation.

2. Increase the average order value

Average order value = Total sales / Total number of transactions

There are many ways to increase the average order value, such as professional product description, promotional events, limited-time and limited-quantity discounts, instant discounts on all platforms (stores), coupons on all platforms (stores), discounts on all platforms (stores), product-related recommendations, etc.

From the above method, we can see that the types of coupons involved include at least full-reduction coupons and discount coupons, and promotional activities are more likely to include a variety of "fancy" coupons. Let’s take the simplest example: a user originally planned to spend only 300 yuan, but found a coupon that gives a 30 yuan discount for purchases over 350 yuan, so he may end up spending more than 350 yuan.

3. Repeat purchase and activation

Coupons are also a powerful tool to increase user repurchase. A common way is to give coupons when placing an order. After the user places an order, the system automatically gives him the coupons that he has set in advance. Generally, there will be an order amount limit and a limit on the number of times the coupons can be collected, as shown in the following figure:

Another way is to send coupons to designated users according to user stratification during normal times or before events. For example, large coupons can be sent to silent users, and coupons of specified amounts can be sent to more active users. Both can achieve different degrees of recall and activation effects.

There are more combination scenarios for coupons and marketing tools (activities) than those mentioned above. With the increasing interest in social e-commerce, content e-commerce, membership e-commerce and other models, it is worth spending more time exploring how to use coupons.

The introduction to coupons ends here. Thank you for watching and learning. Next, I will continue to write two articles on the specific design of coupons and the allocation and verification of coupon discounts.

Author: Dao San

Source: Product Secrets